Trip to the vet

[ev477]

So, I went to the vet this past weekend for an initial inspection for my milk snake and none of my questions were questions were answered very well...

I asked about the gender of the snake, he said it was told by probing the hemipenes. He started looking for it, and he pointed out this little white spot on it's belly two inches from the tail, (on a 16 inch snake), saying it was there and said that my snake was too small to have it done.
There wasn't a visible hole or vent where he was pointing, but I thought I had located one before about 4 inches from it's tail...

I'm still unsure about the gender of the snake, i'm not asking for any input on that, but is this guy credible? or is he just some ill-educated vet that's not doing his job very well?

[kc261]

Is this vet one that specializes in herps? Most vets, like your typical cat & dog vets, don't know much about snakes. Even if this vet specializes in "exotics", that could mean guinea pigs and parrots, not reptiles.

[ev477]

Well, I am not too sure, he was the reptile doctor for that place apparently, and they showed me pictures of this 12 ft. snake that he saw the night before while I was waiting.

The thing that I thought was weird was that he said, "If your snake is having problems shedding, you can keep it in a cage with a layer of water at the bottom for like three days, it would be harmless to the snake."

It was our local vet hospital, my mom has dogs she takes there, but they see a different vet that works there. I'm still not sure what to make of the situation.

[sweety314]

Sounds to me like you need to find another vet. A lot of current vets are self-trained as to care for reptiles, no formal schooling, just reading and researching.

http://www.anapsid.org/vets/#vetlist

http://www.herpvetconnection.com/


check one of these for a vet in your area.

[ev477]

Thanks for the links sweety! I definitely know who i'm going to for my next visit to the vet... hopefully it won't be for a while though.
I loved anapsid.org, it was the most helpful website I found when I was wondering about getting a snake, i'm glad you showed me the vet list on there.

The vet I went to turned out to be more credible than I thought, I thought he was showing me the cloaca in the wrong spot, and turns out he was actually right because Vegas was musking on me today when I picked her up, although I shouldn't be happy to say that... I did get her checked out for any parasites and got a clean bill of health, but I found a lot of answers to my questions on here or anaspid.org that I didn't get at the vet

[sweety314]

YVW!!! Glad I could be of help.